Saturday, 20 July 2013

24 hours each day, 365 days each year, there is at
least one British nuclear submarine concealed at sea, armed with 48 nuclear
warheads. The Trident home base is at
Faslane on the Clyde. The arsenal of the Trident fleet is equivalent to 1000 Hiroshima
bombs.

It has been estimated that should Trident be fired
by design or accident some 40 million people would die.

Simply to keep the Trident submarine fleet afloat
costs the British taxpayer around £2.5 billion per year.

The word “deterrence” has no meaning in military
strategy, “nuclear deterrence” is a
political statement.

Papers released in 2001 show that the British
military establishment have detailed plans for a first strike nuclear
attack; NATO has persistently refused to sign a “no first use”
clause. An initiative taken as recently as 1998 by the German Government
fell on deaf ears. A leading NATO document reads “nuclear weapons
must be used with discrimination and
precision”. The Westminster Government has stated that in the event of hostilities breaking out, our nuclear fleet would be assigned to NATO – so much for our so-called “independent nuclear deterrent”.

Despite the end of the Cold War, Britain’s stock
of nuclear missiles continues to grow,
from 1990 to 1998 the total grew from 96 Polaris warheads to 180 Trident missiles.

A

ll of Britain’s Cold War nuclear weapons are kept
in a secret location a mere 60 miles from Glasgow. No other country would harbour such an
arsenal so close to a densely populated area.

There are today, around 35,000 nuclear weapons in
the world. At least 5,000 of these are
on a state of alert – ready to be launched in 15 mins.

The USA has currently 150 B61 nuclear bombers
on standby, within bases in Belgium, Germany (3), Italy (2), The Netherlands,
Turkey and the UK, ready to be loaded for take-off in 30 minutes.

In July 1996, the International Court of Justice,
the highest court in the world, ruled that the threat or use of nuclear weapons
would be contrary to international law.

This argument, that Trident was illegal, was
successfully used by three protestors from Trident Ploughshares in their
defence at Greenock Sheriff Court.

Trident is a criminal weapon of mass destruction
which is in Scotland without the approval or consensus of the Scottish
people. Even before the Scottish National Party won an overall majority at Holyrood, the majority of MSPs were opposed to Trident renewal. An Independent Scotland would make removal of Trident a top priority.

Thanks for your comments. I was referring to the secret nuclear weapon store on the Kintyre peninsula which is approx. 60 miles from Glasgow as the crow or the fallout flies. See my blog “Britain's secret Nuclear Weapon store”http://bit.ly/15wrHBJ

Thanks for this information John. I had no idea of the scale of the nuclear arsenal in our country, ( probably like the rest of the populace ).Should a Yes vote prevail, would we be ridding the country of all the weapons, or just Trident? With thanks, Alex.

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About Me

After completing ‘Highers’ in school, I joined the Civil Service in Inverness in the Accountant and Comptroller General’s Branch. Several quick promotions took me to the Head Office in London, and further promotions to the General Accounting Division, with links to the Treasury. This involved me in the preparation of National Budgets.
I also was entrusted to handle the most confidential investment papers of Her Majesty the Queen and personally repaid to her the income tax deducted on these investments, which at that time the Monarch was not required to pay.
It was whilst working on Government finance that I became aware of the appalling waste of resources on weapons of mass destruction, which could never be used without causing the end of civilisation. On retiring from the Civil Service I joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and was elected National Convener of the Scottish Campaigns' Committee and served as a member of the Scottish National Executive. I was Vice President of Scottish CND.
(Sadly, John Jappy passed away on 14th February, 2018. Nevertheless, we continue to make the public aware of his exceptional articles.)